We made it! I'm blogging from a hostel in Athens near Victoria Square. The flights over were fairly uneventful and relaxing. We were fed REAL food TWICE by very nice British Airwaves folks. At Logan Tracy was pulled over by security for a randon check, completely disrupting her pre-boarding rituals, which include kissing the plane and boarding on my right side. Don't ask...Well, we arrived safely never-the-less. I had a minor accident on the first leg of the flight - I dumped a half cup of water on my lap. That was fun. So I was sitting in a puddle of water for about 2 hours. Learned something important though: The seat cushions that double as floatation devices don't absorb water. Good thing :)

We arrived at 4am Athens time. After we went through customs, passport check and got our luggage it was 4:30am. We were hoping to waste more time at the airport - no such luck. So, we boarded a bus for our hostel. Despite the 24-hour checkin policy, we had to wait until nearly 9am to get a bed. We sat in a basement that looked like your worse frat bar memory. The bathroom and shower didn't look promising either. I fell asleep briefly with my head on my arm (neck pain, yes!) and starting feeling "funny" in my body when we finally got a room. The beds are bunk style - four in a room - and the bathroom was clean and private. Still, since the rest of the hostel was just waking up as we were trying to sleep, it wasn't very restful.

At 1pm we decided to face Athens not quite rested. Perhaps not the best choice, we tackled the Acropolis today. For those who haven't been, it is up on a hill, with MANY steps. I can't believe we made it. At one point I got severe vertigo, helped no doubt by lack of sleep. I felt my head was swimming. But we trekked on. Well worth the trip, you can imagine. As we got closer I exclaimed, from a foggy mind, "Tracy, look! Old stuff." Yeah, I was tired. We dregged our tired butts around the ruins, went to the Athens port to get our ferry tickets to Santorini (7:25am tomorrow!) and bought sandwiches for 1 euro each. So far we have managed to live on less than 5 euro a day!

Still exhausted and suffering jet lag, we are headed to bed early tonight, fully expecting to be woken by hostel guest dragging in at 4am as we did. Early day tomorrow as we head to the island. Weather is beautiful. Haven't figured out the Celcius conversion yet, but it is shorts and tank-top weather. Hope to put on the bathing suit soon!

Side note: On the bus ride from the airport, I noticed several billboards "welcoming" us to Greece: "Nescafe - the taste of Greece" (wah?) and ads for Noika and Heinikein (sp?) beer. So much for culture shock. These billboards were, of course (!) owned by Clear Channel. Can't escape my dissertation, it would seem.

That's all for now (Internet at 1 euro for 10 minutes). More later!